Shards of Broken Souls
by Nieadra
Summary: their souls scattered upon the floor, the only ones who can put them back together are those who shattered them. post seeing red but w.out any more of season 6 or 7.
1. Cold Glass

Authors Notes: This began as a therapeutic story for myself and so some of the more obscure allusions/in continuities in it are due to that. Please read and review. I do plan on continuing. 

She walks carefully over the broken glass from their last fight. Avoiding the finer powder; knowing it would be harder to get out of her skin… though almost wanting that… she walks dangerously close. Every bare step she feels another piece brush against her skin and heal automatically. "This isn't sharp enough," she thinks to herself. 

Walking over to the corner of the crypt she finds a spared pane. The way the moonlight hit's the surface allows her see herself. What happened to her? So many cuts… but she never bleeds. What happened to the blood? Without it how can she be _her_? They share blood. No. Wait. She is wrong there. Again. She doesn't have his. 

Yet. 

The glass shatters with her frustration. Only after does she realize that it was her that broke it. 

What happened here? Why isn't he back? He hasn't left, has he? 

Sure enough, he walks through the pipes below her, up through the hole in the basement to his bedroom, up the ladder, into the kitchen. He can hear her pacing, smell her … that intoxicating scent marred only by her fear. She still bleeds? 

He had told himself he would never come back here. Not after the last time. He wanted to give up and escape… hatch some new plan and return maybe then. But only then. Only when he could do something. If he can't do good he might as well revert to the ways of old. 

No. Of course. His plan had failed. She caught him again without knowing it. She felt something. It was revolutionary… he had to be there, in case she felt more. He had to experience this.

Fear is something isn't it? Something to live for…

As she paces she wonders the same thing. For months it was nothing. Cold doesn't count as a feeling. It makes you numb. "Numbness is the _lack of feeling_." she reasons with herself. Even the heat of her womb no longer is felt. Something as basic and human as that. She no longer bled… what was she? What had she become? But now! Now she was afraid… fearful. But why? What threatened her? … What was there to threaten?

It gave her something though. 

It gave him something. 

Its what brought them together again. They needed one another. But only when they couldn't have each other. That makes it too easy, it makes it nothing. The feelings are lessened then. 

No problem there. 

He used to pace. He is cold. He is dead but… is more alive than her. 

Why did they need each other? Thoughts at the same time… this they knew. She knew he was close. He smells of leather, she senses his magnetism. The overtones of mystery with him, ones that rival only her own. She can't sense those though. She can't realize this. Her own mystery? 

Her friends tell her how much she hides. She doesn't hide, but lives in the dark. Not her fault. They wouldn't want to know anyway… 

He understands. He has been dead. 

Cold. 

Sitting down on the cold slab she shivers. It isn't enough she is cold on the inside… its cold here. His lifeless touch is warmer. 

She remembers those hands….

She looks at her own. Stained with ink from her recently rekindled love of the written word. "He was a poet before wasn't he," she asks herself, making a mental note. Reaching in her bag she pulls out a small journal and an ancient pen. A forgotten gift from an old friend. He left it on her pillow. That was his too. A long time ago… 

Dipping the pen into the well she begins…

His ears perk up at the scratching of a quill on paper. He smells the rawhide. Smiling he lies back down on the velvet pillows of his bed. Sips his drink. Listens. She has picked up his passion has she? 

Walking over to the mahogany secretary, he opens the glass doors, flash backs of the previous night hit him hard… "Is this the only glass left?" … Shaking himself out of his reverie he reaches for a hidden box and makes his way back to the bed, though he rarely sleeps here. 

She sits on his real bed unknowingly. Many nights he lie there stiffly on the cold unclothed stone, in quite the same state. He doesn't feel it so what does it matter? Waiting for her… 

She doesn't know what she is writing. It doesn't really matter. It all pours out here. Maybe she has been hiding…

From?

Accidentally she spills the ink on the stone staining the pristine white surface of the stone. Transfixed, she watches it gracefully swirl down the side, a small river to the floor. 

She walks to the kitchen. His kitchen. "Why does he need a kitchen?" She finds the paper towels. "Why does he need paper towels?" She cleans up the drips as much as she can, leaving a marbled stain on the tombs surface. 

She never really thought about it that way. This place, it is a tomb. Funny. It's where she feels alive. 

Not finding what she wants she walks out into the balmy spring night, though pulls her jacket tighter around her. Leaving her journal forgotten on his bed. The pen now on _his_ pillow. Unconscious of the significance. 


	2. Spilt Ink

He rises from his bed. Her presence, that distinct aura is distant now. He no longer hears her moving about above him. She has left.   
  
She will be back.  
  
They both know.  
  
He climbs to the upper chambers and finds the plumed pen and diary on the stone in the center of the room. The faint black stain to the floor. Ink well still toppled over, left dry. He picks these up. Doesn't dare to read the book, but smiles at the girlish penmanship. Rounded letters and circles to dot the i's. No 'thee's, 'thou's, or 'doth's.   
  
"This," he thinks, "This book I hold in my hand is her key. The secret to her … in her purest form. Undiluted, without mystery, full capacity horror." He descends back to his warmer candlelit quarters, and pauses as he places the small book in the box and sets that back into its hidden spot. "She sees too much." he whispers to the darkness.   
  
Lying down on the comforter again he remembers what that box contains. What importance it has. How important – sentimentally – its contents are to him. Old watches stopped, dated glasses that would no longer help you see clearly they are so scratched, a ring and a crystal, yellowed papers with his archaic writings scrawled on their surfaces. Love notes to a forgotten obsession. He laughs.   
  
When was the last time he wrote?  
  
Again he rises. This time with purpose. He searches the secretary for his journal. Does he even still have one? Finds a canvas-covered book with tea colored pages. Not yet tainted. Looks again. His pens. A black one with rolling wet ink. He likes to watch it dry, bleed into the paper. Stain his clean hands. Seep into the lines and cracks of his palm.   
  
His nimble fingers hold the pen. A long time has passed since he has felt this last. Compelled to write. … what about? What has he to write about? Something beautiful…  
  
She staggers wearily into her room. It smells of the after burn of incense. Faintly of apple. The blue walls covered with posters. The new kids on the block really are starting to date her… maybe she should take him up on that offer.   
  
Sprawling out on carpet she stares blankly at the ceiling. Her hand trails over her breasts, ribs, stomach, hips. When had she last eaten? More than a few bites in a meal. She could feel her bones. Not sharply yet, but they were there. A latent hunger stirred within her. Somehow, it didn't seem food would satiate this longing.   
  
Abruptly, she jerks her hands away from her skin. She can't stand the touch.   
  
Instead she stands. Wanders aimlessly around her room. "This is too confining!" she wants to scream. Only the voices in her head hear her. She sobs dryly. Unable to cry. Another human trait vanishing with time.   
  
On her dresser she sees two vials. One filled with a dark oil, the other a clear. For a moment she contemplates which to use. The black is musky, sensuous, and fragrantly deep. The light liquid has an airy scent, less heavy, more open. She opts for the first. Its what she is tonight. 

Most nights.

Especially nights.   
  
The clean scent can wait until morning.   
  
The candle on his desk begins to flicker as the wick gets even lower. The wax already dripping down and around him. Some on the journal. He chronicles his life. And death. Then rebirth. Somewhere to begin. At least that is how he had started. Now he is deeply absorbed in explaining the present. Explaining her. Or trying to.   
  
Unexpectedly he is brought out of this trance. Her scent again hit his nose. This time masked unsuccessfully by a deep perfume. He can smell her sweat and adrenaline. She is fighting.  
  
Calmly he puts down his activities to watch.


End file.
